Synopsis
Police beat a murder confession out of four innocent men who are then sentenced to death. Based on a true story.
1956 ‘真昼の暗黒’ Directed by Tadashi Imai
Police beat a murder confession out of four innocent men who are then sentenced to death. Based on a true story.
Mahiru no ankoku, Ombres en plein jour
Watching Tadashi Imai's Darkness at Noon was a true revelation of a lost period of Japanese cinema. I had seen two of Imai's earlier films, Till We Meet Again and An Inlet of Muddy Water both of which were well-made if a bit disappointing with the hype a lot of cinephiles give them.
Imai was a social realist director who was actually among the most praised within Japan during his time, only Ozu was held in the same esteem as him. His Marxist ideology and how every film was an expression of his political beliefs put him at odds with Western critics such as Donald Richie who found him to polemical. In some respects, I agree with this assessment. In…